Method of multicolor printing



Sgt. 10 1940. v F. WEISS METHOD OF MULTICOLOR PRINTING Filed Nov. 15, 1939 3 Sheets-Sheet 1 BY/M ATTORNEY.

F. wzlss METHOD OF MULTfCOLQR PRINTING Sqat. 10, 1940.

5 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Nov. 15; 1939 INVENTOR.

ATTORNEY.

p 0. 1940- F. WEISS 2,214,687

union or MULTICOLdR PRINTING Fil'ed Nov. 15, 1939 3 Sheets-Sheet I5 Patented Sept. 10, 1940 UNITED STATES PATENT U OFFICE METHOD or mmrrconon. rnnv'rmc Franz Weiss, Park Ridge, n1. Application November 15, 1939, Serial No. 304,506 Claims. (01. 101-211) hue cannot printed simultaneously except if the respective color areas are far enough apart to allow separate rolling or inking up. But under normal conditions all printing processes apply their colors to the printing plates, from which the inks or colors are transferred to the surface to be printed. They all, for this reason, are limited to one color at a time.

This means that any reproduction of a colored subject or illustration requires at least three colors, mostly four, in lithography up to six or seven colors and in other .special printing processes 1. e., rubbe rplate, silkscreen process, woodblock, etc., even more. An increase in the number of colors is especially necessary if these colors are supposed to be solid colors, as for example for decorative purposes in wallpapers, where normally no halftone is used. A

Any increase in the number of colors therefore increases the cost of the print and it is evident that very considerable savings could be accomplished if all colors could be printed with one impression.

The solutidn of the above problem is among the objects of my invention, which permits printing or transferring of any numberof colore from the plate to the surface to be printed on, with one impression. I accomplish this only by a radical departure from the present methods where the printing-plate is always a body of metal, rubber, wood, linoleum, silk, 'etc., to which and from which color is applied for the process of printing.

I make my new plates from the printing-colors themselves, and .impresssions are taken or lifted 01! from .these mosaic-like plates by moistening of the surface to be printed with the proper solvents.

My method of multicolor printing and my multicolor printing-plate include such other objects, advantages and capabilities, as will later more fully appear and which are inherently possessed by my invention. 4

While I have shown in the accompanying drawings and described in the specification a halftone. But several colors of entirely different preferred methodand a preferred embodiment of my article of manufacture, yet I wish it understood that-the same are susceptible of modification and change without departing from the spirit of my invention.

Referring more particularly to the drawings, I have illustrated therein the steps of my detailed method, as hereinafter set forth.

Fig. 1 is an elevational view of the tracing of a subject on a sheet of tracing paper; Fig. 2 is a perspective view of the mounting and rolling of the tracing on top of a flat sheet of formable material to form a formsheet; Fig. 3 is a perspective view of the cutting to the formsheet with a stencil knife; Fig. 4 is a perspective view of the cutting of the formsheet with a coping saw into segments; Fig. 5 is a perspective view of the placing of the segments in a lubricant pan; Fig. 6 is a perspective view of the lubricated segments laid on a flat sized support in the same relation .to each other that they were in the formsheet;

Fig. '7 is a perspective view of the removal of certain segments; Fig. 8 is a detailed view of two of the segments; Fig. 9 is a perspective view showing' the pouring of coloring into the spaces for-26 merly occupied bythe removed spaces; Fig. -10 is a perspective view atfer the pouring of the "col oring has been completed. wi a temporary margin; Fig. 11 is a perspecti view showing the pouring of the molten material over the segso ments; Fig. 12 is a perspective view of a support; Fig. 13 is a perspective view showing the dissolving-away of the sizing; Fig. 14 is a perspective view showing the building up of a permanent surrounding edge; Fig. 15 is a cross sectional "view of a finished color plate: Fig. 16 is a bracketed view showing detailed views of a block of paper, a sheet therefrom and a can of solvent;

Fig. 1'7 is a perspective view showing the rolling of the sheet of paper 'over the color platefand Fig.. 18 is an eievational view of the print obtained from the color plate.

My preferred method of multicolor printing comprises tracing or drawing a full sized subject a on a sheet of tracing paper, as shown in Fig. 1,

shown in Fig. 3, intoas many parts as there are color areas in the subject. The formsheet F is then cut through along the cut lines in the trac- The 5' ing paper T with a fine wire attached to a coping saw 0, as shown in Fig. 4, into as many segments or pieces S as there are color areas. Care must be taken that the cuts are perfectly vertical. A push pin or nail P is stuck into each of the cut mosaic-like pieces S of the formsheet F. and each segment S is placed in a lubricant L which is in a pan, as shown in Fig. 5, and lubricated to prevent sticking and to provide slidability. The lubricated mosaic-like segments S are then laid on a flat sized support Z, as shown in Fig. 6, in the same relation to each other as they were in the formsheet F. When all of the segments S have been assembled, like theparts of a jig saw puzzle, a certain segment or segments S are removed, as shown in Figs. '7 and 8, and ink or coloring C of a desired color or shade is poured or dropped into the space formerly occupied by said segment or segments, as shown in Fig. 9. The ink or coloring C will rapidly set and hardenand will not stick to the lubricated walls of the adjacent segments S. In this-way each segment S is replaced by the color it represents by a segment of color C.

When the pouring of the colors or inks is completed, the edges of the segments C are protected from breaking down by the remaining segments S forming a temporary margin M, as shown in Fig. 10. 7

To build the color plate R formed from the segments C up to uniform thickness I build a border 3 of wood or the like around the color plate and then fill it with molten wax or plaster of Paris A, as shown in Fig. 11. Before this filling is cooled or set I put a support X, as shown in Fig. 12, of board, glass, metal, cardboard or screen down on top of the filling A and let them bind together. When cool I turn it over, remove border 13 and dissolve away the sizing Z, as shown in Fig. 13, rinse and wipe the color plate R formed from the color segments C, which is now bottom up; very carefully with plenty of water, or a suitable solvent.

With this procedure, I'get a reverse looking plate in order to obtain a right print, and furthermore I thus obtain a perfectly even and smooth printing surface in my color plate R. I

then remove the segments S forming the margin M and make a permanent surrounding edge E of plastic material, as shown in Fig. 14. A cross section of the finished color plate R is shown in Fig. 15.

In order to print I take a sheet of paper, cloth for textile printing, or any suitable material H and moisten it with a solvent V, as shown in Fig. 16, and brin it in contact with the color plate R, apply sufiicient pressure with a roller Y, as shown in Fig. 17, lift the paper from the plate to which it sticks and the print is finished, as

shown in Fig. 18. Every color of the mosaic-colper, banners, or the like, wherein there are fiat colors and no blendings or washes, and wherein color is predominant.

' In my method I may trace the design or subject directly onto the material base W and thus eliminate the tracing paper T and the applying of the tracing paper T to the material base W. The step of my method of cutting the tracing per, which can be accomplished by the use of Instead of the filling in step shown in Fig. 11, ,5

I may obtain uniform thickness of the color plate R by shaving down its exposed face with a heated blade, and print from the thus obtained flat, even face of said color plate.

In my method the inks or colors used have the following properties: I

1. Extreme firmness or hardness, so that when printing is done from them the plates stand up under the pressure of the roller and hold the exact shape of each individual color area in the printing plate.

2. Extreme concentration of color so that as many impressions as possible can be taken from a plate of a given thickness.

3. Sufllcient solubility, so that when a paper is 20 moistened with a proper solvent and pressed against the plate, momentarily enough colored im: from the plate is dissolved and taken up by the paper to give a strong print.

4. Proper chemical formulation with sufficient thrermoplastics such as resins and waxes to give all the necessary firmness in the cold, and low enough melting point so that when heated in the water bath the colors or inks soften aroundv to degreesFahrenheit or melt at about 150 to degrees Fahrenheit. These approximate softening and melting ranges are necessary to facilitate the making of the color plates.

5. The inks must be non-drying and not changing as long as incorporated in the plates, so that plates can be stored away under proper precautions, and reprints be made even after a year or more. The inks must bequick drying when dissolved and transferred in printing onto the paproper solvents, i. e., low boilers.

6. Absolute uniformity in body and strength of all diflerent colors or inks, so that the same amount of color is lifted off from the color areas during printing.

With inks, incorporating these properties, it is comparatively easy to make a multicolor printing plate for as many colors as wanted, but the plates may be somewhat restricted in the reproduction of detail, which means the finer the detail in the plates the more diflicult itbecomes to make the plates.

If the colors are not in flat, distinct areas, but blended or washed out, I use the form sheet only as an auxiliary medium to define certain areas in the drawing. Each area might have a number of different colors or tints and shades, and to reproduce these fairly faithfully it is difiicult to pour molten inks into, such a space because I,

might haveto put a dozen or two diflerent colors or shades into this area and it might be too small to cut out from the form sheet. To do this fairly quickly and dependably I soften the ink to a consistency of artist oil color, and squeeze the colors out through the fine nozzles of the tubes onto the gluesized support to form fine lines, dots or patterns. Since the inks are rapidly setting, they do not flow out and form raised lines. This layer of various colored fine lines and dots is, of course, by far not so thick as a poured layer of one color which I can pour in one operation in any thickness wanted, but has to be built up to the required thickness by repeating the operations with the tubes with the same colors as previously and as 15 ter colors, or the like.

Prints of subjects with detail may be reproduced in small runs or quantities of 500 to 750 from one plate so made, since a plate built up from fine lines and dots must necessarily have a limited thickness, while poured plates with larger individual color areas allow much greater thickness, up to one inch or more, which plates give of course correspondingly more prints. My numerous trials with improved inks of good firmness and extreme concentration give me at least 1000 impressions from a one-quarter inch thick color plate. Thinner or thicker plates corr'espondingly less or more.

It is understood that plates do not have to be made exactly by the foregoing mentioned methods, but that the procedure can be modified as the particular case might warrant,'i. e., it may prove more practical to produce lines or shading, or line technique of an art work by pouring first the predominating color and then by lifting out with a graver these lines or small details from the color plate and squeezing different colors into these grooves. This can be facilitated by somewhat warming the color plate from top or bottom to soften the set andhardened colors whichcan be worked or grooved easily in the softened stage. There are many ways of simplifying or modifying the general procedure by the use of preformed letters, borders, decorative designs and the like, but all thesethings are merely alternatives of ,the foregoing description.

The basic principle is forming a plate with the colors themselves and'to do this properly the colors have to have the before-mentioned properties. The most important property, which makesv this method possible, is their thermoplastic nature. They must be firm when cold and soft and workable when warm or hot. This is accomplished by incorporating thermoplastic materials, like natural resins, synthetic resins and waxes, into the mixture.

I have produced colors or inks of three different basic groups: (a) varnishes or oilsresin mixtures, soluble in hydrocarbons, or solvents of coal tar or similar derivatives; (b) lacquersresin mixtures, soluble in their thinners; (c) gums-water soluble resin mixtures, soluble in water.

A wide variety of inks can be produced this way and they can be adjusted to print all kinds of colors or dyes, (pigments,'toners, lakes and dyes), on all kind of materials. My water solu-, ble' thermoplastic water color ink is perfectly suited for multicolor textile printing of any kind of dye on any kind of fabric. The fixing agent for the dye -(to bind dye to the fiber), is added to the water with which the fabric is moistened for printing.

The use of a particular ink necessitates of course the choice of the proper material for the form sheets and their lubricants.

For the form sheets, when harder cutting materials like wood, linoleum, rubber or the like are not wanted, I either pour wax into sheets,

which wax is first chemically treated and softened so that it cuts cold with a wire but still holds perfectly its shape, or roll special soap into sheets of required thickness, or I use a special very firm clay compound of very little shrinkage. 1

All out out pieces of the form sheets have to be lubricated to prevent sticking together and sticking of inks to the side walls. Only a very thin layer is necessary and advisable, since a thicker layer would make it dimcult to lift the individual pieces out from the assembled mosaic form sheet. I

As a rule it is safe to use a saponified water. as a lubricant for the varnish and lacquer and a wax solution for the water color or dye inks. Generally speaking, the lubricant should be non drying and not mix with the colors.

Proper lubricating prevents bleedingof colors into neighboring areas too.

The inks are in the cold so heavy, contain so little solvents, that they hold their colors perfectly in suspension. They allow and preserve perfect lines between the different color. areas and do not mix, run together or blur the lines unless they are heated on the color plate 3 to promote fiow, to soften lines and make tints and shades fiow together. 7

It is evident that this method offers tremendous advantages when combined with other printing methods. Any number of colors. can be printed by these color plates and detail and copy by any other method, for example for maps, color' charts, fashions, interiors, etc., wherever color is important.

Having thus described my invention I claim:

1. The method of multicolor printing comprising applying a tracing sheet to a flat body of cuttable material to make a formsheet, vertically cutting said formsheet into segments, each segment representing an area for a desired color, lubricating said segments, removing the segments one or more at a time. and filling each space with a printing material of a desired color to form a color plate, applying a support to the face of the color plate, turning the color plate color print with one impression.

3. The method of multicolor printing comprising making a tracing of the subject of the print desired on thin tough tracing paper, applying said tracing paper to a flat body of cuttable material to forma formsheet, cutting through'the tracing paper on lines defining certain desired color areas, cutting vertically through said form sheet along the cut lines of the tracing paper to create a plurality of segments, removing each of said segments, lubricating thesame so that they will slide and will not stick and replacing them in their original relative positions, again removing each of said segments one or more at a time and filling each space with ink of desired color to form a color plate, placing a border of colorless material around said color plate and filling in over the face of said color plate to form a support, turning the color plate over, dissolving off the sizing on the bottom of said color plate, and applying solvent treated surfaces to said exposed color plate to obtain a plurality of inultlcolor prints, each print being obtained with a single impression.

4. The method of multicolor printing compris- I ing forming a formsheet, cutting the formsheet into segments, removing the segments one or more at a time, pouring in printing material of a desired color in said spaces, adding printing material of other desired colors in desired spots in the spaces to fill the same, and applying a surface to the color plate to obtain a. multicolor print with one impression.

5. The method of multicilor printing comprising forming a tormsheet, cutting the formsheet into segments, removing the segments one or more at a time, pouring in printing material of a desired color in said spaces, removing some of the printing material in desired spots and placing thereon other printing material of desired color, and applyinga surface to the color plate to obtain a multicolor print with one impression.

FRANZ WEISS. 

